adepis - how can teachers include legal highs in their a&d education programme? - kip education

How can teachers include legal highs in their alcohol and drug education programme?

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KIP Education presents:


“[It’s] not that teens are stupid or incapable … it’s sort of unfair to expect them to have adult levels of organisation skills or decision-making before their brain is finished being built.”

Jay Geidd, Neuroscientist, US National Institutes of Health


What makes drug education effective?

1. Environment: • Underpinned by a whole school approach• Enhanced by family-based prevention programmes


2. Planning: • Relevant and responsive to the developmental stage

and circumstances of the children and young people• Taught in the context of other personal, social and

health issues.• Manageable given available resources• Informed by programmes that produce achievable

outcomes• Developmental: re-visited, consolidated and extended

throughout childhood and youth• Supported by appropriate training• Evidence based and/or evaluated


3. Practice: • Create a comfortable classroom climate• Uses interactive teaching styles• Be responsive to different cultural views and realities• Include a normative component


4. Content: • Explore attitudes to drugs and drug users• Provide children and young people with opportunities to

develop social skills• Use credible, reliable and up-to-date sources to explore,

contrast, and, where appropriate, support (or challenge) attitudes to self and others, to drugs, to drug use and non-use - and to drug users and non-users

• Strengthen protective factors• Minimise risk factors


5. Evaluation:• Assessment• Monitoring• Impact evaluation


Defining Drug Terms and Use• In the broadest terms, a drug is “… any substance

which changes the way the body functions, mentally, physically or emotionally”.

• Focus on changes in the body and/or behaviour brought about through the use of such substances. These substances are also referred to as psychoactive drugs, meaning that they affect the central nervous system and alter mood, thinking, perception and behaviour.

• Use definitions that make no distinction between the legality, social acceptability or ‘value’ of drugs.


Defining Drug Terms and Use• Blanket definitions often have weak logic

underpinning their meanings, making them vulnerable to challenge, particularly in terms of highlighting inconsistencies.

• Once a broad, working definition of drugs has been established, one is better placed to discuss the health, personal and social costs arising from substance use.

• This does not mean that the legal status of any drug is not important;

• It acknowledges that the risks arising from drug use are not present exclusively in relation to the criminal/justice system.


Drug use does not automatically lead to addiction nor is it universally

characterised by behaviours associated with dependent substance

use. If our responses to drug use are to be effective, they have to be

embedded in this understanding. The diagram presents a simplified model of the different stages

or levels of drug use, starting with a Drug Free stage.


Drug, Set & Setting


Examples of lesson plans

Main harms of NPS/legal highsHealth Problems • Mental disorder: anxiety, psychosis, mood• Dependence: craving, tolerance, withdrawals• Physical health: ‘route’ damage, diseases• Poisoning: acute intoxication, overdose• Death: fatal ODs, accidents, suicide

Social Problems: • crime & CJS, relationships, children, social exclusion,

discrimination etc.

Economic Problems: • personal debts, policy costs etc.

Extent of these problems: mostly unknown


• Schools need to maximise the effectiveness of school-based programmes through efforts to keep young people engaged in school.

• The identification and provision of this supports at-risk children, management of drug-related incidents and a broad-based curriculum which supports all aspects of the child’s development.

• Effective drug education can promote a working partnership between schools, parents and the community, facilitating a coherent and measured response which is specific to the individual school.


Drug education will certainly challenge the teacher’s own values and attitudes. Teachers have expressed feelings of being ill-equipped in this area. However:

• Effective teaching about drugs has the same characteristics as good teaching in any subject.

• It is important to identify existing pupil knowledge as a starting point.

• Drug education within the school setting needs to be part of an integrated curriculum rather than separating out drugs and alcohol from the rest of their education

• Staff training needs, should include regular updates to reinforce and review knowledge and skills

Resources• http://www.whynotfindout.org (e-learning, information and videos)

• For an overview of the benefits of legalising drugs, their pros and cons, Count the Costs initiative entitled 'The War on Drugs: Options and Alternatives'. http://www.countthecosts.org/sites/default/files/options-briefing.pdf

• http://www.substance.org.uk/ (Leaflets and factsheets)

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adepis - how can teachers include legal highs in their a&d education programme? - kip education

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